Madhya Pradesh Assembly Elections 2023: Congress Releases First List Of 144 Candidates

MP Elections 2023: The Congress on Sunday released its first list of 144 candidates for the upcoming Madhya Pradesh assembly elections scheduled next month.

The opposition party in the state has given tickets to 69 sitting legislators, including Madhya Pradesh Congress president Kamal Nath. He has been fielded from his home-turf Chhindwara.

Actor Vikram Mastal, who played the role of Lord Hanuman in a television serial, has been fielded by the party from Budhni in Sehore against Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister and senior BJP leader Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

Elections to the 230-member state assembly will be held on November 17, while votes will be counted on December 3.

The Congress has fielded Rajya Sabha member Digvijaya Singh's son Jaivardhan Singh from Raghogarh and brother Lakshman Singh from Chachoura in Guna. Both are sitting legislators.

Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Dr Govind Singh has been fielded from Lahar constituency in Bhind district, while former BJP MP Bodh Singh Bhagat, who recently joined the Congress, has been fielded from Katangi in Balaghat district.

The first list of Congress candidates also includes former ministers:

• Ajay Singh (Churhat)

• Ramnivas Rawat (Vijaypur)

• Lakhan Singh Yadav (Bhitarwar)

• Harsh Yadav (Deori)

• Mukesh Nayak (Pawai)

• Kamleshwar Patel (Sihawal)

• Lakha Ghanghoriya (Jabalpur-East)

• Tarun Bhanot (Jabalpur-West)

• Omkar Singh Markam (Dindori)

• Sukhdev Panse (Multai)

• Sajjan Singh Verma (Sonkatch)

• Vijay Laxmi Sadho (Maheshwar)

• Sachin Yadav (Kasrawad)

• Bala Bachchan (Rajpur)

• Jitu Patwari (Rau)

• Priyavrat Singh (Khilchipur) and

• Narendra Nahta (Manasa)

They served as ministers either during the previous Kamal Nath government or the Digvijaya Singh-led regime of the Congress in the state earlier.

In Bhopal district, the Congress has fielded Manoj Shukla from Narela seat, sitting MLA Arif Masood from Bhopal Central and Jaishri Harikiran from Berasia. In Indore city, the Congress has given ticket to sitting MLA Sanjay Shukla from the Indore-1 seat, where the BJP has fielded its national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya.

Congress media penalist Charan Singh Sapra, while addressing a press conference in Bhopal, said in the first list, the Congress has fielded 39 candidates from Other Backward Classes (OBCs), 22 from Scheduled Castes (SC) and 30 from Scheduled Tribes (ST).

He said 47 candidates in the list are from the general category, six are minorities and 19 are women. Sapra said 65 of the 144 candidates in the list are below the age of 50.

(With PTI inputs)